As is known in the art, cloud computing systems contain large numbers of servers, hardware devices, servers, storage systems, networking devices, software modules and components. When configuring a computer system (“host”) to communicate with a storage system (“array”) using a network based file system (“NFS”) provided over the IP protocol, it is common to configure VLANs (virtual local area networks) and access control to the network-attached storage volumes. A VLAN (“vlan”) represents a logical segmentation of a physical Ethernet network. Membership in the VLAN by a host or array is determined by physical connectivity to an intermediate network device (“switch”) to an Ethernet adaptor (“adaptor”) located on the host and array components, which are identified by IP (internet protocol) address and MAC (media access control) address.
Sets of hosts, switches, and arrays assembled in close proximity make up a unit of cloud infrastructure sometimes referred to as a pod (“pod”) of devices. The pod components are physically connected via Ethernet networks. The logical configuration of pod components and networks creates a platform that is sold or leased as a service (“service”) from a menu of predefined configuration offerings (“offering”) for consumers of cloud computing. Offerings from vendors define the type and quantity of resources, such as three servers with 16 GB of memory having four processors with 20 GB of disk space each, and a shared storage volume of 200 GB. This allows for the consumer to use the host and storage resources in predetermined offerings within the pods making up the cloud.